A/N: All of you who read and review are my faves. This is kind of like a transition chapter.
Maura sprinted after Frankie, intent on being there to see whatever awaited them, when she heard Korsak from what sounded like around the corner.
"Maura! Frankie!" She's over here!" His deep Boston voice called out, and when they turned toward the door, they saw him, with Elena's hand in his, standing and waiting for them.
Frankie gathered her up in his arms and swung her, kissing her so loudly and so wetly that she actually yelled at him to stop. The navy blue of her Red Sox sweatshirt matched his kevlar as though they were cut from the same cloth, and that pushed Maura to breaking.
"I've got her, go do your jobs!" She spat, grabbing her daughter from her brother-in-law and pressing her as close as possible. He recoiled, unnerved by the hate in her eyes, but she could not be bothered to care.
When he remembered that Jane was inside, and she might be injured, he followed Korsak in. Maura's look, however, would never leave his mind.
"Mommy, what's happening?" Elena Giuliana cried, the stress of seeing all the adults in her life in chaos finally getting to her. Maura spun her and checked her roughly for injuries, palpating and pressing with both speed and accuracy.
"Oh Elena," the woman sobbed when she was convinced the girl was free of at least life-threatening wounds, "Are you alright, baby girl?"
Elena nodded in response, putting no trust in her voice, the one she hated the sound of when she cried. This incited riotous flames in Maura's brain. Her protectiveness steered into overdrive, and she clung to her child again. But when the three detectives exited the same door they came from, Korsak and Frankie holding up Mrs. Perez, and Jane walking behind them on her own with her shoulder slightly askew, she pounced.
Her open palm made quick work of Jane's cheek, and the resounding hollow schwak! startled all of them. Elena shrieked and Jane nearly stumbled to her knees.
"Ah Maura what the hell?!" Jane yelled, fishing around the inside of her mouth for any loose teeth. If she had found any, they would have been the least of her worries.
"I understand you have some sick compulsion to be a hero at all times, and hey, maybe I don't have room to complain since I married you. But how DARE you endanger my daughter's life in the process!" Maura responded and the harsh twang of her vocal cords bounced in the industrial complex as a booming accompaniment to the next slap to Jane's face.
"No!" their daughter screamed, watching everything unfold. Tears rolled in fat, wet drops down her red cheeks. She balled her little fists, as though she might bolt at any moment.
Korsak dragged Mrs. Perez away to call for an ambulance and get a statement, and that left Frankie, who grabbed Maura's arms gently. "Hey oh hey, Maura," was all he said, feeling unqualified to say anything else.
"That woman was going to die, Maura! You want me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while that happens? Huh?!" Jane shouted back, eyes wet from the sting near her mouth.
"Let go of me, Frankie," Maura's request should have been icy, regal, but instead it fluttered and shook with emotion. He did as told, and Jane shot him a death glare. "You weren't twiddling your thumbs, god dammit! You were picking up Elena from school! That is not nothing! Her safety is not something you can just forsake for your job!" They were in each other's faces now, still screaming, but sharing jagged breaths.
"Don't tell me how I feel about her safety. Why do you think I parked the cruiser on the side and had her hide till Frankie got here?! Because I thought it would be cute?!"
"She wasn't in the damned car! When we drove up she wasn't there!" At Maura's words, Jane pulled back, a nervous confusion on her face. Dread painted her skin in tones of red and pallor.
"What do you mean, she wasn't there? She's standing right here," the detective said, her normal register sounding like a whisper in the context of their fight.
"She got out of the car, Jane! So either she did of her own volition, or you're a liar. And so help me, if you are lying-"
"No! I did it! I did it!" Elena hiccuped, desperate for the argument, the shouting, to stop, "Mamma said five minutes and it was five minutes so I got out! I just wanted to look for frogs! I just wanted to look for frogs!"
Jane broke at the ugly sounds, and so did Maura. When they both went to her, however, the medical examiner grabbed her before her other mother could reach out, and then pushed Jane away. "Don't touch her," she ordered, and there was the cold demeanor that everyone had expected before. "And don't you even think about setting foot in my house."
Jane stood frozen as the shorter woman walked to Frankie's cruiser with their child, and Elena wailed.
"You're… ah…" Maura gasped, "you're still… so good at that…" she knocked her head back against her vanity's mirror while Jane stood between her open legs and fucked her. She had hated the small set from her mother, too antique for her taste, but as she sat on its table, grasping at the straps on Jane's hips, at those thrusting hips themselves, she wondered if she'd been using it wrong the whole time.
"That spot don't go away just because you don't like me no more," Jane panted, laughed, her Boston accent coming out to play, and she took full advantage of Maura's fall backwards to suck on her neck, to breathe in her sweat and shampoo. She hit a particularly sensitive patch of flesh in her wife, and winced when the nails of one hand dug into her shoulder.
"God," Maura sobbed in pleasure, using her calves to push Jane further inside. "Like? I loved you, that's the problem. That's why this whole thing is such a… oh… a mess," her inflection rose higher and higher, until she nearly squeaked the last few syllables.
"Loved me? Past tense?" Jane slowed her pelvis to a grinding crawl, and while Maura could have killed her for the change, the resulting wet, smacking sound filling her ears, the sound of them together, shot her need up another level.
"Love you. I love you," the shorter woman amended.
Jane heard the desperation in her words. "But you said 'loved'," she teased.
"Don't complicate this," Maura snapped, grumpily. She glared when she pulled back enough to see the smirk on Jane's face, somewhat distorted by the only source of light in the shadowy bedroom - the bathroom's fan.
"I'm gonna make you come fast, just for that," Jane said, and Maura had to grasp onto her tightly.
"Don't you dare, Jane… Jane!" she choked out, off-kilter because of the unexpected speed and the pleasure-flood already coiling at the base of her spine. They both chuckled, delighting in a rare moment of humor between them, before Jane put a steadying hand out on the wall behind the vanity and did as promised.
Maura looked over at Jane fondly as the woman sat in nothing but her undergarments at the hole in the wet wall. She bit her lip before she talked, still able to smell the two of them in the air - she wouldn't deny that seeing Jane this way, having her this way, messed with her body chemistry; it always had. It was still no secret how Jane made her brain feel. "What on Earth are you doing?"
"You believe it's been two weeks and I still haven't finished this thing? Every time I walk in here I get sidetracked," Jane answered. She licked her lips in concentration as she measured her new cuts of lumber against the wall studs, sighing when they fit perfectly.
"And what does Dr. Harley say about the new development?" Maura jibed. She tightened her robe around herself, trying very hard not to let her simper turn into a full-blown smile.
"The fucking or the distraction?" Jane asked, unwilling to ruin the moment of easiness between them, the first in awhile.
Maura couldn't help it. She laughed openly. "Both, I suppose."
"Distraction's normal, I guess," the detective started, "but since we've done it like five times counting the first time, she's convinced it's not really just fucking for me."
Maura faltered then. She felt the fragile truce they had built on the vanity crumbling with each word that left her mouth. "You know that's all it is for me, Jane. That's all it can be."
Jane wanted to say she was full of shit, but she wasn't sure that was the case, so she only nodded. "I keep trying to tell her that," she sniffed. "But hey, you know Dr. Harley. Once she gets something in her head," she said faux-distractedly, drilling the access panel into place.
Maura thought she might cave and run into those long arms if she stayed on the topic, so she didn't. "I put your clothes out on the bed for you. I have a meeting first thing in the morning, so I would appreciate it if you could make every effort to finish up soon."
"You gonna make me leave again?" Jane asked, but by the time she turned around to demand an answer, Maura had walked away and shut the door.
"You look like shit," said Frankie Jr., pausing to swing his softball bat with a mighty whiff. He grunted, first with exertion and then with pride when he gave it a ride.
"Thanks, you're too kind," Jane snarked. She leaned up against the chain link fence of the batting cage and glared at her brother. The day was cloudy and cold, but two of the Rizzoli siblings took hacks at the batting cage every Saturday, rain or shine.
"You still not sleepin'? I know it's been rough, but I thought you'd turned the corner these past couple months," he turned fully to her, and they talked between the fence.
Jane was touched by his genuine concern. Also irked by his hogging of the cage. "Get out, little brother."
He did as told, and when they switched, he spoke again. "You talk to Elena yet?" he asked, the whirr of the machine drowning out their conversation to any of the other patrons nearby.
"'Bout what?" Jane asked as she batted.
"'Bout your shit not bein' her fault," Frankie said.
"Oh. Yeah."
"What'd you say?"
"Basically that. I told her that we love her no matter what, and we love each other no matter what. Even if things don't quite work out the way we want them to."
"Ok," he responded. "So are they?"
"Are they what?"
"Working out the way you want them to?"
Jane missed the next pitch, the momentum of her swing causing the bat to nearly catch her in the head. "What?"
"With Maura. They workin' out the way you want them to?" he reiterated. He was unwilling to let it go, and noted the pink tinge in Jane's cheeks.
"I wanna be with her. You see that happenin' right now?" Jane answered bluntly.
"Well, you tell her that?"
"Trust me, she knows."
"So you haven't."
"You mind dropping it, Frank?"
"How is she supposed to know if you don't come out and say it? Christ, I feel like it's you guys dating all over-"
"She knows because I been fucking her since the 28th, god dammit! Happy?"
"Holy shit!" Frankie gasped. "Does E know?"
"'Does E know-' You kiddin' me?" Jane balked, "oh yeah, I told my six year old that I'm nailin' her ma even though we broke up."
"No, thickhead, does she know you're back together?!" he clarified, as though it were the most obvious question in the world.
Jane's eyes darted around for eavesdroppers before she continued. Her voice was hoarse with shame. "We're not."
"You're not together," he stated more than asked, and now that he heard it, everything made sense. Including why he had mysteriously felt like an ass throughout the whole conversation. "I'm sorry, Sis. Just, you and Maura love each other so much, you know? I guess I just assumed if you were sleeping together-"
"We were making love?" She said, looking up to keep her eyes dry. She scoffed.
"Sounds stupid when you say it out loud, I guess," Frankie whispered, deflated.
"Yeah. Sounds real stupid." Jane agreed, snatching her bat and starting up another round of pitches.
"So… why did that start happening?" He picked up again after awhile. Clouds moved overhead, and some of the other people around started to clear.
"The fucking?" Jane asked through gritted teeth as she swung.
"Yeah, that," Frankie refrained from rolling his eyes at her vulgarity.
"I don't know," she said, "Maura started it one night. I was over fixing the shower leak a couple weeks ago and it just sort of happened."
"I'm surprised she didn't just want it to be a one time thing."
"She did. But then I started coming over to drop Elena off after practice, or to help Ma paint the kitchen, and… it just became a thing that we did. She's insistent that it doesn't mean anything."
"Well, we both know that's a load of crap."
"Maybe," Jane shrugged. "She seems pretty adamant, and she won't let me in the bed."
"But you want more." Frankie said, goading her to continue.
"Didn't I say that already?"
"I'm gonna ask you again. You tell her that, in as many words?"
"No," Jane said simply, wanting to spit fire at him, but remembering Dr. Harley's techniques. She should let others talk before she butted in. When she did, it gave her an idea.
"You should. Just be honest, Janie. Life's too short."
"We'll see, little brother," she acquiesced. Maybe Frankie was right.
